I got my Anbernic RG351V today, and after just a few minutes of play with it I'm very much on board. It took a bit of fiddling to get it up and running — primarily because it demands SD cards be in FAT32 format and Windows doesn't like formatting large cards in FAT32 by default, so you have to use a third-party format utility — but now that it's working it's going to be a wonderful little retro device to have on hand… at all times, basically.
I haven't done a lot with it as yet, but I already like some of the features it has enabled by default. Of particular note is its simulated Game Boy screen — I'm not normally a fan of fake scanlines at all because I tend to think they look tacky and, well, fake… but the "dot matrix" effect this thing applies to Game Boy titles by default looks incredibly authentic. Except for the fact you can actually see the thing in low light, of course.
It claims to support N64 games but I tried one earlier and it really doesn't… I mean, it loads them up and all, but performance is dogshit. I'm not too bothered, though — what this device does offer is the ability to play a whole load of excellent retro titles from over the years (up to about PS1 and PSP comfortably) with minimal fuss, with a nice screen, good controls, all in a pleasingly nostalgic Game Boy-style form factor.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not abandoning the Evercade or anything — hell, most of the Evercade devs and testers have something along the lines of one of these things — but having a huge library of retro stuff (much of which is in licensing hell, and thus unlikely to ever hit Evercade) is going to be an immensely valuable, wonderful thing, particularly if and when we all start going out and about a bit more.
I'll be doing a more substantial writeup on the device for Retrounite in the week, but suffice to say for now if you've been considering one of these things, it's definitely worth it — so long as you don't mind a little bit of faffing around when you're first getting it set up. But let's be honest; most of us here are retro gamers, and faffing around comes with the territory, whether you're working with original hardware or emulators!
Right, I'm off to play Alleyway in bed.
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